Geigertown family to auction railroad items, cars

David Shirey looks over the train yard along the tracks at the Geigertown Central Railroad Museum Inc. in Geigertown. Shirey, president of the museum is holding an auction and selling some of the railroad collection along with antique automobiles Saturday. Shirey's son D. J. Shirey was an active train enthusiast and collector and was killed in 1993 working at the Blue Mountain & Reading Railroad in crane accident while trying to lift a derailed train car. Mr. Shirey is holding the auction in memory of his son.Photo by John Strickler/The Mercury

GEIGERTOWN — To quote an Oct. 8, 1993, account of his death in The Mercury, “D.J. Shirey lived and died on the railroad.”

Shirey, a railroad worker and 1985 graduate of Daniel Boone High School, was killed at the age of 26 when a crane overturned on him as he was trying to right a derailed train in Hamburg in October 1993. He will be remembered this Saturday at an auction at his former Geigertown home.

The auction starts at 9 a.m. Saturday at 1403 Geigertown Road, part of the 150 or 160 acres owned by the Shirey family in Union Township. Jared Shoenly, owner of Cabin Fever Expositions of Spring City, will be the auctioneer.

“This is all in memory of my son. My son got killed on the railroad,” said David Shirey, D.J’s father, who resides on the family property where he grew up.

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Among the items to be auctioned are a full-size Reading Railroad caboose, a Frick Traction Engine, a 1940 Hudson four-door sedan and a 1937 Packard two-door sedan. In addition to railroad gear and automobiles, the auction will feature many unique items, including an apple washing machine, 20 cases of factory-sealed (empty) Bergheim Beer cans, railroad lanterns and signs, and a large collection of brass bells. To see the full listing, visit www.cabinfeverexpo.com/auctions.

Gary Schoenly, broker for Cabin Fever Expositions and father of the auctioneer, said the auction of “part of a large family collection” is one of the larger auctions he’s been a part of.

Shirey said selecting and preparing the items to be included in the auction was “a lot of work” for him and his son Paul, who runs a towing, trash and scrap business on the Geigertown property.

Paul Shirey’s business operates from a building where David Shirey and his former wife, Millie, had operated Shirey Cash & Carry beginning in the early 1970s, selling hardware, groceries and gas for many years.

When asked if Saturday will be an emotional day for him, seeing some of his son D.J.’s collection go, Shirey nodded his head slowly.

“I’ll be glad when it’s over,” said Shirey, who will celebrate his 70th birthday on Oct. 14.

The auction and the family’s preparations for it will be televised on an upcoming episode of the new reality show “Money Barn,” presented by Original Productions and Animal Planet. Filming of the show, which features barn sales and auctions in and around southeastern Pennsylvania, began on Tuesday and will continue through Saturday’s events.

The Money Barn Facebook page referred to the auction as “a treasure-trove of barn goodies in the Geigertown, PA area.” This auction will comprise the show’s fourth episode.

Shirey said so far the filming has been fun but a bit tiresome, requiring him and his family to do several takes at times. However, there have been some perks.

“They brought us some good food,” Shirey said of the film crew from Original Productions. Shirey, now referred to as a ‘celebrity’ at his local church, said he was already looking forward to the coffee and doughnuts the television crew promised to bring on Saturday.

No air date has been set for the show featuring the Shirey auction as of yet.

A portion of the proceeds form the sale will go to the Geigertown Central Railroad Museum Inc., a nonprofit the Shirey family has set up in D.J.’s memory. David and Paul Shirey hope the auction will draw attention to the effort.

D.J. Shirey was best known for his work on the Blue Mountain & Reading Railroad, and later the Reading & Northern. He was head of the Shay Rough & Tumble Railroad in Kinzers, Lancaster County, for eight years.

From a young age, his dream was to create his own railroad, which he named Geigertown Central Railroad, “complete with engines, freight cars and tracks that would circle his farmhouse in the rolling hills of Geigertown,” according to an Oct. 6, 1993, article in The Mercury.

“My son D.J. really knew his stuff about trains,” David Shirey said.

D.J. Shirey, who married his wife Frances aboard a steam locomotive in 1991, had moved from his native Geigertown to Hamburg with his wife and baby daughter about a year before his death.

With the help of his grandfather, Dave “Bob” Shirey, D.J. amassed a quite a collection of rail cars, old trains, and rusting engines. Meanwhile, D.J., learned everything he could about railroading. For two years he drove the diesel engine in Pottstown that pushed the old Ironstone Ramble steam train. He was chief operating engineeer for the Blue Mountain and Reading Railroad, where he had done “almost every job,” including driving and inspecting diesel and steam engines and shoveling coal into the locomotive’s fire box. Just a few months before his death, he became a locomotive steam boiler inspector.

Part of that vast collection is what will be up for auction Saturday.

But there are some items that Dave Shirey says he will never part with, such as “The 1914 Model Ts my dad bought that we worked on together,” he said.

Shirey’s love of tinkering on things with engines is evident in the number of vehicles on the property, most of which still run, in various states of repair. He says most of what he learned about working on engines and such came from diving in.

“You don’t learn anything if you don’t do it,” Shirey said.

What will Shirey do with all the space the auction will free up in his barn? Well, he has plans for that already. He wants to use that space to better display some other automobiles he has.

“We’ve been collecting for quite a few years, you see,” Shirey said. “I just kept on getting stuff in.”